Holly Neill and Ronna Haxby float on Bull Creek. / Ray Jones

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Ronna Haxby

Pulling the boats on Bull Creek. / Ray Jones

I had an opportunity to spend a couple of days (this fall) on beautiful Bull Creek in Taney County. Notice I didn’t say floating Bull Creek. That’s because we spent as much time pulling our kayaks as we spent paddling them! We’d had enough rain to put some water on the river, but it was about two or three inches shy of floatable over most of the ledges and riffles.

Holly Neill, with the Missouri Stream Team Watershed Coalition, partnered with me and Ozarks Water Watch to complete a riparian assessment of Bull Creek for the Missouri Department of Conservation. My husband, Ray, came with us, and we floated and hiked about 14 miles of the river. We did document a lot of stretches of river with significant stream bank erosion, and I’m pretty certain this contributed greatly to the murky water we encountered as the river turned into Lake Taneycomo near Rockaway Beach.

The water in the river itself was crystal clear, though, and was a wonderful reminder of the beauty of clear running streams. However, at some places, the clarity revealed areas where we would suddenly see lots of long streamers of bright green algae. It would last for a few hundred feet and then become clear again. These areas were a great reminder that even clear water can be affected by nutrients from unseen nonpoint sources.

For the most part, though, the water was beautiful on those two days, and we thoroughly enjoyed being on the river. It was fun to watch a healthy number of big fish swimming in the deep pools. We even saw a couple of beavers; one was swimming right in front of my boat! (Too bad I wasn’t able to get a good photo of that.)

This trip brought back memories of swimming in Bull Creek, Little Indian Creek and some of the other spring-fed creeks and rivers of the Ozarks when I was young. They were clean and clear as drinking water. Even Table Rock Lake was like that when I was a child. You could go out 20 feet deep and clearly see the bottom.

I never closed my eyes underwater when I was a kid. I was looking at the sparkling rocks, searching for one that might be a “keeper.” I was intrigued by the shiny little fish darting back and forth, and the occasional crawdad that would scurry backward to hide under a rock, escaping my quick little hands. No matter how cold the water, I didn’t want to get out and miss something interesting that I might discover.

I realize that Table Rock and Taneycomo are no longer new lakes, and like me, they won’t retain all of their youthful qualities as they age. The water will never return to the clarity of drinking water, and there will always be some algae on the rocks.

As I struggle to gracefully embrace the effects of aging, it becomes clear that staying healthy is one of the keys to retaining vitality in the latter half of my life. If I live on junk food, my health and energy will deteriorate. The same is true for lakes. The lifeblood of the lakes are the creeks and rivers that flow into them. Clean, healthy rivers help make clean, healthy lakes.

I am honored to make my living working to protect and preserve the water quality in the Upper White River watershed.

I was blessed to grow up in such a beautiful place, and I believe that future generations of children living in the Ozarks deserve to have some crystal clear memories like mine!